Three months ago, the extremist group known as the Islamic State kidnapped hundreds of women from the Yazidi sect. Since then there have been many stories about what has happened to the women, including physical and sexual abuse, slavery and forced marriage.

NIQASH spoke to doctors who have treated some of those women and confirmed that the horror stories are true – and worse.

When the young girl first came to their village, the people living there knew nothing about her. In this village, mostly populated by Arabs, the locals just saw a young girl that kept crying. Every day she cried.

And for a long time nobody could figure out why. This was because the man who owned the house in which the 16-year-old girl was living was a member of the extremist group, the Islamic State, or IS, and he didn’t want his neighbours to know what was going on.

However in small villages like this one it is hard to keep secrets. The women of the village began to whisper about the girl whose name is Layla. “Poor thing, she is a Yazidi,” they said.

A few weeks have passed since Layla was brought to the village to live in the house of the IS fighter and one of the IS group leaders comes to visit her regularly – she was forced to marry him and was also forced to convert to Islam.

Layla’s story is not uncommon. The Yazidi women and girls who have been kidnapped by the IS group have been forced to either become the wives of the IS fighters and convert, or they are given as “sex slaves” to members to reward them for their service.